


Hypothesis

by ryeloza



Series: Hypothesis [1]
Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 00:54:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20733566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryeloza/pseuds/ryeloza
Summary: Leslie can handle this.  It’s just Ben’s bedroom.  Where he keeps his clothes.  And gets dressed.  And sleeps.  Probably in pajamas, maybe naked.  What?  She doesn’t know.Leslie and Ben are just trying to get some work done. It does not go as planned.





	Hypothesis

**Author's Note:**

> This was for the prompt: Leslie and Ben play strip poker. Takes place pre-Road Trip.

“Hey,” says Leslie brightly when Ben opens the door. He’s looking at her kind of dumbly, his hair stuck up in a million directions, and she wonders if she woke him up from a nap (which maybe she should feel guilty about, but come on, he knew she was coming over). Still, he doesn’t quite seem to comprehend that she’s standing outside his house. “I brought my idea binder,” she prompts to a blank stare. “We were going to talk about possible ways to celebrate the start of spring? You know, the beginning of park season?” Nothing. “Ben?”

“Right,” he finally agrees, albeit with a distracted glance over his shoulder. “Yeah. Of course.”

“Is this a bad time?”

“Oh—uh—no.” He reaches out and pulls her inside by her elbow, wrapping an arm around her and almost forcibly guiding her through the house. “Just…We should go work in my room probably.”

“What?” _What?_ “Like your bedroom?”

The thought is so jarring, she stops short, but before she can ask for an explanation, her eyes fall on Andy and April, and she realizes why Ben is acting so twitchy. “Oh my god.”

“What? Oh—good lord.”

Leslie’s hand flies up to cover Ben’s eyes just at the moment he turns his head, so she kind of pokes him in the eye a bit, but it doesn’t stop her from blinding him with her hand. “April,” she says, trying and failing to sound unperturbed by the sight of her coworker sitting topless in the living room. “What are you doing?” And then, because April’s just sitting there looking bored and staring, she adds, “Can you put a shirt on, please?”

April rolls her eyes and lifts her hands to cover her breasts, and it’s only then that Leslie notices Andy, who has managed to be inconspicuous for probably the first time in his entire life. He tips his head back along to couch to look at her and gives her a little wave. “Hey Leslie. You and Ben wanna play strip poker with us? Ludgate is pretty terrible. She’s only won my socks.”

Andy lifts his foot and wriggles his toes, which is somehow more disturbing than anything else.

“Yes, Leslie,” says April. “Play strip poker with us.”

“No. No. No. No, thank you. Ben and I are just going to his bedroom. To—uh—to work. And we’ll just leave you out here to do…this.”

She starts to steer Ben out of the room, which is a little awkward with her hand still over his eyes, but they manage to make it back to his bedroom only bumping into the wall twice. “Leslie,” Ben grumbles as she reaches for the doorknob, “I think you can drop your hand now.”

“What? Oh, right.”

He’s smirking at her a bit as she lowers her hand, and it only serves to fluster her more. It’s really inexplicable, how on edge she feels. After all, April and Andy are adults, kind of, and they’re married and obviously well within their right to play sex games in their own house, although it seems a bit rude to do it in the common space when Ben lives there too. Honestly, did April want Ben to see her breasts? She shouldn’t—or Ben shouldn’t—Well, neither of them really—

“Leslie.”

Crap. Did she say that last part out loud?

“I didn’t know what they were up to until I came to answer the door,” he explains, running his hands through his hair and further disheveling it. He looks fairly ridiculous. “And I thought…Well, things escalated pretty fast, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“But I guess, I mean, they’re newlyweds. And Andy and April. They do stuff like that all the time, and I think fifty percent of it is just to freak me out. Last week I walked in on them and Andy had this teddy bear…Well, never mind, you don’t need to be traumatized too. But we can just work in here. They’ll move into their bedroom…eventually.”

“Right.” Of course. Leslie can handle this. It’s just Ben’s bedroom. Where he keeps his clothes. And gets dressed. And sleeps. Probably in pajamas, maybe naked. What? She doesn’t know. And god, okay, she needs to get a grip here. Just because she’s got nudity on the brain and they’re going into Ben’s bedroom does not mean the two have to be equated at all. Shake it off, Knope. “Absolutely. You have a desk, right? We can work in here, no problem.”

He does have a desk. And a bed. And it’s the latter that her eyes linger on a beat too long. “I know,” says Ben. He’s hovering behind her, closer than she realized, and she jumps when he speaks. “It’s not ideal.”

“It’s fine.” She’s lying. This is far from fine. In fact, it’s bordering on dangerous. But instead of postponing this or moving their brainstorming session to a more innocuous location, she sits down on his desk chair and tries to remember to breathe when he perches on the foot of the bed.

“So…”

“So…”

Ben smiles. It’s a bit self-deprecating, like he realizes they’re in his bedroom for the first time, but not at all for the reason either of them wants to be, and it’s as torturous for him as it is for her. It makes her feel more balanced and a little less alone.

And frustrated.

Absolutely, wholly frustrated.

“You want to show me your ideas?”

She wants to show him more than that.

“Sure.”

It works out about as well as she expects. She remains in the chair, he on the bed, neither of them breaking the boundaries of their distance. Ideas are proposed, rejected, hashed out, refined—all with the usual enthusiasm and attention to detail Leslie has come to associate with working with Ben.

And yeah, it’s work. Which is a pretty good distraction under normal circumstances, but things have been far from normal for awhile now. It’s become the confines of their relationship: a world they can’t stray outside of no matter how much they want to, and so everything—everything they’re feeling and thinking and wishing and not saying—is caught up in it.

And tonight they’re working in his bedroom. A fact they’re pretending to ignore, but are actually all too aware of.

She’s not sure what Ben’s thinking (just very alert to the fact that he’s thinking _something_, judging by the look in his eyes and how, every so often, he loses track of what she’s saying because he’s too busy staring at her). For Leslie, it’s that she’s overly conscious of the fact that this is Ben’s bedroom, a place she’s fantasized about one or two (or thirty) times. A place she’ll now be able to picture when she lets her mind wander to all of the very inappropriate things she wishes they were doing.

And maybe a couple of times she lets herself picture his reaction if she forgot about all the reasons they can’t be together for a little while and tackled him onto the bed.

_Maybe._

Even for that awkward twenty minutes or so, when Andy and April finally do make it to their bedroom and are clearly not even trying to be quiet, they still manage to make it work.

It’s pretty impressive, all things considered.

“I guess,” says Ben eventually, once the noise from the next room dies down and Leslie casually mentions she’s starving, “it’s okay to go out there now, right? We could move to the kitchen. I could make us some pancakes or something.”

“Sure.” She stands, hugging her idea binder to her chest. Inadvertently, she glances at his bed, and she has to remind herself that their impulse control is a good thing. They should be proud of themselves.

“Leslie?”

She should be especially proud of herself. She almost never has impulse control. And here she is, faced with the thing she wants most in the world right now, and she’s not doing anything about it.

Good thing. That’s a very good thing.

“It’s just a game, right?”

“What?”

She squeezes her binder a little tighter, ignoring the voice in her head that’s still trying to insist that restraint is a virtue. “Strip poker. It’s a game. Just like Monopoly or Scrabble.”

Ben’s eyes widen, searching hers for some clue where she’s going with this. She can see the unspoken question in their depths, that one that says, _Are you crazy? We’re almost through this ordeal and now you’re bringing up strip poker again?_ And damn, maybe she is certifiably insane.

“Um…Yeah,” he agrees slowly. “I guess. Technically.”

“There doesn’t have to be anything sexual about it. There’s no touching. No kissing. Just…a lack of clothes.”

Ben rubs his hands over his pants, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. He’s unraveling, and it only further antagonizes her. She wants to push him over the edge so badly, to make him join her on the side of insanity, she’s hardly aware of what she’s saying. “I mean, let’s say, theoretically, two coworkers have been experiencing some tension, but they’re not allowed to act on it.”

“Theoretically?”

“Shh. I’m just saying—maybe there wouldn’t be so much…_tension_ if those coworkers could see each other naked. Because then they’d know, and there wouldn’t be so many distracting thoughts going on while they were trying to work.”

There. That’s logical. And true. He can’t deny that this is beginning to interfere with work. The past hour or so has been proof of that.

“That’s…an interesting hypothesis.”

“I think so.” She smiles pleasantly, trying to hide how anxious she feels. Her heart is pounding, her stomach is in knots, and it’s only made worse by how Ben is staring at her. His hesitance wears thin, replaced by a darker look—one that indicates that he might actually rise to meet this challenge. A challenge born of her nervous babbling and inability to stop thinking about him naked, and escalated by her competitive nature, and god, is this really what she wants?

“I mean, you’re right. It is just a game.”

“Uh huh.”

They stare at one another. His eyes are daring her to finish what she started, but underneath there’s still something gentle—something that would let her bow out gracefully and not hold it against her. It’s the game they’ve been playing for months now: a perverted version of chicken that neither of them have come close to winning.

She’s so weary of it.

“Do you have cards?”

Ben’s eyes widen. There’s a flash of terror, there and gone so fast she may have imagined it, and then he stands and leaves the room. The second he’s gone, Leslie gets up, shaking her arms and rolling her neck, trying to relieve the coils of nervous tension in her muscles. It’s a game. Just a game. A game that’s going to solve all of their problems and let them work together without all of this pesky sexual tension.

No big deal.

She picks up Ben’s laundry basket and tips the clothes out onto his dresser, not paying any attention to whether they’re clean or dirty, and then sets it bottom side up on the floor to create a makeshift table. When Ben returns, she’s sitting on one side of it, drumming her fingers over the plastic.

“I—uh—got the cards.”

“Good.”

“They’re a little sticky. Because, well, I think Andy, in general, is a little sticky all the time. I caught him eating jelly out of a jar with his hand yesterday.”

“That’s okay.” She laughs, haltingly, and bites her lip. Ben shifts his weight uncertainly, and then settles on the opposite side of the laundry basket and begins to shuffle the cards. His hands, which are distracting on an everyday basis, are downright fascinating as the bend and manipulate the deck, and it’s really too bad that he’s not wearing gloves because the slow reveal of his long, nimble fingers could be one of the sexiest things she can imagine.

“So how do you want to do this?” asks Ben, snapping her out of her hand-porn fantasies. “Do you—I mean, are we—That is, I don’t have any poker chips.”

“Oh.” She wrinkles her nose and then lunges for her purse, abandoned at the side of the desk. From inside, she digs out a bag of M&Ms and tosses them on top of the laundry basket. “This’ll work, right?”

“Sure. We’ll just divide them up evenly and, uh, use them to wager. Whoever loses…”

Leslie swallows hard. Oh god. “Whoever loses has to take off a piece of clothing.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

Leslie fumbles for the bag, just to have something to do, ripping it open and dumping the entire contents out onto the laundry basket. The candy skitters across the surface, and she pops one (or six) into her mouth before starting to divide it. Ben deals the cards, five to a side, and then draws his pile of M&Ms closer to his side of the basket.

“Careful, Leslie.” Ben’s eyes draw over her slowly, starting at her hands and ending at her mouth, following the trajectory of another piece of candy she can’t help but eat. “You’re going to lose this before you start.”

Crap on a cantaloup, he’s right. She shoves the M&Ms as far from her as she can and picks up her cards. Pair of jacks. Not a bad start. She lifts her eyes over the frame of her hand, trying to surreptitiously study Ben, but he’s already staring at her. Flustered, she scoots five M&Ms to the center of the table and waits for Ben, who doesn’t look at all concerned.

“Raise you three.”

There’s a hole in the logic of this game, Leslie thinks. If she doesn’t match him, she has to fold, and if she folds, she loses, and if she loses, she has to take off a piece of clothing.

Of course, if she doesn’t fold and she loses, she’s out more candy.

If she’s out of candy, she also out of her clothes.

God, is it hot in here? It feels hot. Especially with Ben staring at her like that, eyes all dark and warm. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to have to take off her sweater.

“Leslie?”

Oh right. “I call.” She dumps three more M&Ms in the pot, plucks her three loser cards from her hand and waits for Ben to deal her three more. And oh, bless Ben’s sainted, card-dealing hands, he gives her another jack. Eagerly, she bets three more M&Ms.

“Call.”

Leslie throws down her cards with a triumphant grin that grows when Ben reveals he only has two pair. “I win!” she crows, pulling her candy pile toward her, forgetting for a moment what that actually means. And then suddenly Ben’s hands are on his belt, undoing the buckle and removing it, and oh right—there’s more at stake here than candy.

She eats two more M&Ms and tries not to stare.

The next hand, he deals her four hearts in one go, and Leslie gets overeager at just the potential of a flush and bets twelve M&Ms right off the bat. Ben studies her for a long moment, probably trying to gauge whether she’s bluffing, but his gaze only serves to make her squirm. She rearranges her legs, moving so she’s kneeling, wriggling a bit and tapping her fingernails against her cards. Whatever Ben’s trying to read in her face (nice try, buddy—she’s stone cold when it comes to playing poker), he apparently decides to play it cautious. He folds and removes his watch.

Frankly, it’s pretty disappointing. And lame. But it also gives her a few ideas, and when she loses the next hand, she gives him a catty smile and removes her right earring.

“Really?”

She shrugs. “You started it.”

As tauntingly as she intended that move, it turns out to be born of necessity as she spirals into a losing streak. Her jewelry—earrings, watch, and necklace— and both of her sneakers are gone before she gets the best of him again. This may or may not prompt a celebratory dance when he’s forced to peel off a sock.

“Oh, is this what you wanted?” he asks dryly. He tosses his sock in her direction and she stops dancing to shield her face.

“Ew—gross.”

“You won it fair and square.” He extends his leg to the side of their table and wiggles his bare toes, and despite seeing Andy do the same thing earlier, it lacks the same disturbing quality. Sure, it’s still a foot, but it’s Ben’s foot, and just like everything else about Ben, it’s pretty cute. It’s long and his nails are clean and trimmed, which, in Leslie’s opinion, is something that can’t be overvalued. It’s easy to imagine his feet tangling with hers in bed, his ankle hooking around hers under the covers.

Ugh. This is not helping matters. And that was the point of doing this, right? To help relieve the tension between them? Not to spiral into new, unforeseen fantasies about Ben’s feet.

She tears her eyes away and fiddles with her candy pile, waiting an unbearably long moment until Ben deals the cards. She might also eat a couple more M&Ms. Maybe. Who knows—she’s distracted. Ben clears his throat, and she shoves candy into the center of the table without paying attention.

“Are you okay?”

“What? Yes. I’m fine.”

“Really? Because you didn’t even look at your cards and you just bet half your candy.”

“What?” Dammit. She glances at her cards, which are a whole lot of nothing, and straightens her spine. “I totally meant to do that.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes. Really.”

“Fine.” His eyes linger over the M&Ms, and then—what the hell is he doing? He’s actually matching her bid? No—god, he’s raising it. She frowns, and against her better judgement, calls.

“How many do you want?”

“None.”

“Really? None?”

“That’s what I said, Benjamin. What? Are you scared to give me your other sock?”

Ben takes two and raises an eyebrow, flashing her this stupidly cocky smirk, and she stubbornly raises him ten M&Ms.

“I think you’re bluffing.”

“Am I?”

“You’re being oddly still. Every time you’ve had a good hand, you get all excited and can’t sit still. And now, nothing.”

“That’s not true.” _Is that true?_ “And what do you know? Maybe I’ve been hustling you. You ever think of that? Huh?”

He’s grinning now. “You’ve got nothing, Knope. In fact, I’m so certain of it, I’ll make you a deal.”

“Pfsh. I don’t need—”

“You admit it,” he interrupts, leaning toward her conspiratorially, “and all you have to give up is a piece of clothing. I’ll let you take back your M&Ms.”

“And if I don’t?”

“We’ll play out this hand. I’ll win your candy because I am right, and you have to give me your shirt.”

That actually does make her squirm a bit, and only partly because the thought of actually being shirtless in front of Ben does things to her. The thought of admitting she’s wrong—that’s enough to make her cringe. But he’s right; she’s bluffing and if she doesn’t admit it, he gets all of her candy and her shirt and…

And he’ll have to stare at her in her bra.

Her very nice bra. The one that works miracles with her cleavage and has that little lacy frill around the edge.

Ben may be able to distract her with his sexy feet, but she’s going to blow his mind.

Advantage: Leslie.

“Let’s play this out.”

“Wh-what? Seriously?”

“Seriously. I raised you ten. Are you calling or folding?”

“Leslie…”

“What? Are you chicken?”

Ben’s brow furrows, and really, he has no room to talk because he’s as easy to bait as she is. He throws ten M&Ms in the pot. “Well?”

She lays out her cards: two, five, eight, ten and king—three different suits. Ben shakes his head and throws down two pair. “You are so stubborn.”

“Yep.” She tries not to grin as he takes the candy, waiting until he glances at her to tug off her sweater. For a brief moment, as her breasts are exposed and the sweater is still caught up around her head, she feels a wave self-consciousness (because what if this doesn’t work like she thinks and he doesn’t like what he sees and she’s just sitting here with her top off and a severely depleted supply of candy?), but then she gets the sweater off and any worry flies out the window.

Ben’s slack-jawed. It’s the only word she can think of to describe how he’s looking at her. His eyes are wide and his mouth is hanging open a little, and fuck, if that doesn’t make her feel an incredible surge of power. After a few seconds, he seems to come to his senses—or at least realizes she’s smirking at him—and his eyes fly from her chest to the wall, back to her chest, and then up to her face, and damn, who’s the one squirming now? She sits up as straight as she can, subtly arching her back, and Ben rubs his forehead with the palm of his hand.

“Are you going to deal the cards?”

“What?”

“We’re still playing, right? I’m not out of candy yet.”

Ben nods and picks up the deck, but the second he goes to shuffle, the cards shoot out of his hand, flying everywhere. “Fuck,” he curses, scrambling to catch them; Leslie suppresses a giggle and leans forward to pick up the cards on the floor.

“Oh, you don’t—I’ll get them.”

“It’s okay—”

“No, really—”

Before she knows what’s happening, he’s leaning over too, and his face is only inches from her as they both fumble for the cards. She can feel his breath on her cheek and oh god, oh god, oh god, this is exactly what is not supposed to happen. Abruptly, she sits back up, giving Ben an inadvertent close-up of her breasts as she does, and retreats back to her side of the basket.

“Sorry,” he mutters. He stacks the cards and deals, eyes averted the entire time. Any playfulness that began this experiment is gone; even with Ben’s head bent forward in concentration, she can read how serious he is, and Leslie wonders how this is possibly going to end.

How did she think it was going to end?

She really doesn’t know.

They’re silent now, wagering and trading cards without comment or banter. Leslie wins the hand with a straight, and Ben unbuttons his shirt, dark eyes fixed steadfastly on hers. She holds her breath the whole time, not sure why because he has an undershirt on underneath and except for his arms—which okay, fuck, look really, really good—it’s not that revealing.

Yeah. Time to slow this down. She needs a bucket of cold water or something.

Ben seems to agree. At least, he returns to his other sock the next time he loses, and then Leslie gets to remove both of hers. Unfortunately, it only serves as a discomforting reminder that they’re out of innocuous clothing. Something that hits home when Ben’s flush loses to her full house and he pulls his undershirt off without preamble.

Oh god. Oh god help her. This is bad. So, so bad. Ben—wiry, skinny Ben, who looks so good all the time—looks even better with his shirt off, all taut and lean and sexy and forbidden, and oh god, is she in trouble.

Ben deals the cards with steady hands, his calm only making her more jumpy. Has he lost sight of what is happening here? One of them is a hand away from losing their pants, and she’s not sure which possible outcome she’s more concerned about.

Seriously? Ten, jack, queen—all diamonds, and this would be fortuitous except for the fact that it’s steering her directly into danger. She bets low, meets Ben’s raise and trades out two cards; winds up with a nine and another ten, neither of them the same suit.

“I fold.”

“What?”

“I fold,” she repeats, laying down her cards and standing up. Ben’s gaping at her, his face an ambivalent mix of confusion, fear and lust.

“You never fold.”

“I have nothing.” Her fingers undo the button on her jeans and pull down the zipper, and then she works the denim down her hips and thighs, much less gracefully than she wishes. She also wishes that she wasn’t wearing underwear with tropical fish swimming on them, but whatever. It doesn’t seem to matter to Ben, who is basically ogling her, eyes trailing up and down her body without any of his earlier hesitance. He’s not seeking permission anymore; his eyes rake over her like a person who has every right to stare at her body.

It’s unnervingly hot.

Her legs are shaking when she sits back down, chewing on her lip and trying not to think too hard about what’s coming next. And maybe that’s why she’s caught by surprise when Ben folds immediately after her opening bid. “I have nothing,” he echoes, but it’s accompanied by a less-than-convincing smirk.

Ben stands up and she can tell before he even unzips his pants that he’s aroused. He has to maneuver around his erection as he removes his slacks, and Leslie squeezes her legs together. It’s her turn to stare.

“Is this—Leslie, is this okay?”

And she knows, _knows_, that he’s talking about the situation. That they’re both in their underwear and aroused and decidedly in agreement that they’re not going to do anything about it, but she’s staring the outline of his cock through his boxers and reeling over the idea that he’s that turned on and they haven’t even kissed, and yes, yes, yes… “This is more than okay.”

She’s slightly disappointed when he doesn’t immediately fold again. But his eyes keep drifting to her chest, and she knows what he wants—is almost inclined to give it to him except that she’s about to win. She has four of a kind right off the bat, so she raises and grins when Ben meets her wager.

“You owe me your boxers,” she says, laying down her cards.

“_Au contraire_.” He flattens his cards across the basket: a royal flush. “I win this round.”

Leslie flushes, a tinge of pink she can feel in her cheeks and chest, but doesn’t protest as she reaches back to unclasp her bra, slipping it off in one quick movement. Despite the cool night, she feels warm all over, adrenaline pumping as Ben drinks in the sight of her bare breasts. It feels like it should be awkward; that sitting here topless in front of a man she's never even kissed, she should be itching to cover up, but it's Ben, and somehow that makes it okay.

“Fuck,” he hisses. “Leslie…You are gorgeous.”

Leslie drops her eyes, embarrassed, a little, but mostly desperate to kiss him and not certain that her self-restraint is going to last much longer. It’s been months of waiting that has climaxed with this drawn out striptease, and yeah, she was lying when she said this was just a game.

On what planet could this ever just be a game?

“Last hand.”

She nods, picking up the cards Ben dealt her and letting her eyes wonder over her hand. She has a pair of kings and nothing to lose.

She bets five M&Ms. Ben calls. She swaps out the three loser cards for nothing better and declines to up the ante.

Ben lays down his cards.

A pair of tens.

She sets down her cards; Ben glances at them impassively. 

“I win.”

“You win,” he agrees, tugging on the waistband of his boxers and shucking them in one quick motion. “Game over.”

Before she knows what’s happening, or even gets a good look at her prize, he shoves aside the laundry basket, candy and cards flying in every direction, and reaches out for her. Then he’s finally, finally touching her, hands cradling her head as he kisses her. For a second, she’s too stunned to react, frozen against him, and it isn’t until Ben pulls back with a slightly hesitant look in his eyes that she remembers how to move her arms. She loops them around his neck, hands brushing over his warm skin and then up into his hair, and Ben’s thumb skates over her cheek.

“I’m sorry, Leslie, but this plan was completely flawed.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you thought seeing you naked was going to lessen how much I wanted you, you’re crazy.”

“It was a theory.” One of his hands finds her breast, thumb grazing over her nipple, and Leslie whimpers. “It’s important to test your hypothesis, right?”

“Sure.” He pinches her nipple harder, pulling just a bit, and she groans. He grins, lips falling to her neck and exploring. “I have several hypotheses I’d like to test now, if that’s okay with you.”

“Do they involve your bed?”

“Yes.”

“And us being naked?”

“Definitely, yes.”

Leslie moans, tugging on his hair until he lifts his mouth to hers again. He kisses her deeply, mouth opening beneath hers, tongue teasing, and the whole time his hands are moving over her body, learning her curves. But she’s already taut with anticipation, more than ready to go. The past hour has been a testament to the power of foreplay, and if he doesn’t get his dick inside of her soon, she’s going to spontaneously combust.

She reaches down and grasps his cock, stroking the length of it with her palm, and oh yeah, he is definitely ready too—beyond so if his strangled groan is any indication. She pulls away from him and leans back, lifting her hips so she can shuck her panties. He’s staring the same way he has been all night, this look of awe that makes her want to kiss him so hard, but he also can’t seem to stop touching her now that he’s started. As she crawls into his lap, his hands find her hips, thumbs stroking over a little patch of skin that’s so sensitive she actually trembles. Her forehead drops to his shoulder for a second while he teases her, and god, she can tell how much he’s delighting in this, knows he’s grinning even if she can’t see him—he's so damn smug. She lifts her head a little and bites down on his shoulder, hard, and feels a little smug herself when his cock twitches against her thigh.

“Oh fuck. Oh _Leslie_…”

Well, she could definitely get used to hearing her name like that.

“Okay,” she breathes. She pulls back again, just able to reach her purse and tug it over, where she promptly dumps the entire contents out on the floor.

“Okay?” He sounds a little baffled and more than a little unhinged. “What—What are you doing?”

“Ha ha!” She grins as she holds up a condom, ignoring the bewildered look on his face and ripping open the package with her teeth. “Wait,” he says, “I thought—Now? Just like that?”

“New hypothesis,” she pants, rolling the condom onto his cock and smiling as his eyes rolls back. “You’re going to put your dick in me, and it’s going to feel fucking amazing.”

“Oh god—Yes. Okay, yes.”

“And then we are going to have some absolutely mind-blowing sex.”

“Yes. I would really, really like to test that.”

“I thought you might.”

She lifts herself enough that she can guide his dick to her opening, steadying one hand on his shoulder as she slowly sinks down on him. They both groan at the sensation. He’s stretching her, going so, so deep, and fuck, she was right, this is the best feeling in the whole world.

She pauses once he’s all the way inside of her, dropping her forehead to his and shutting her eyes as she tries to gain control of herself. Valiantly, Ben stills beneath her, but his fingers dig into her hips, a dead giveaway to his tension, and yeah, okay, she has to move. She lifts her head, kisses his forehead, and rotates her hips against his, drawing a long, low moan from his lips.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, Leslie—” His lips drop to her clavicle as she begins to move in earnest, drawing herself up slowly and then thrusting back down on him. “You have no idea how badly I’ve wanted you.”

“You have?” She clenches down on him for a moment, smiling wickedly as he groans. “I didn’t know.”

“You’re a tease. You know that?”

“So are you. All those looks you kept giving me. Never kissing me no matter how many times you made me think you wanted to.”

As if to prove her wrong, he kisses her then, hard and sloppy. At the same time, one of his hands slides over her hip, down to her folds and his fingers find her clit, circling there for a moment before moving to stroke gently on either side of it. And fuck if that doesn’t just prove her point. She reaches down and pinches his side, a chastisement that makes him yelp, and the both pull back, breathing heavily.

“No more teasing,” she says, nearly whines. “God, Ben, please. Just—I just need you to fuck me. Right now.”

He nods, shifting them so she lying on her back, her legs wrapped tight around his waist. He slips out of her for a minute as they move, but then he’s right back inside of her, deeper than before, jettisoning into her so hard and fast she sees stars. And fuck, yes, this is what she needs—has needed for months now—never mind the rules or consequences or the fact that this is forbidden, she just needs him.

And god, okay, so it’s not perfect. The floor his hard and cold beneath her and she’s pretty sure one of her shoes is under her neck, but none of that really seems to matter because he feels so, so good. She has no idea how he’s maintaining this pace beyond sheer willpower, but she’s certainly not going to complain. He’s so hard and full inside of her, and his pelvis pushes against her clit with every thrust. She can feel herself cresting, dragging her nails up his back as every muscle in her body tenses, and when her orgasm finally overtakes her, she can only cry out his name.

Her pleasure breaks him as well—causes him to unravel before her eyes and spin her further and further out of control. It’s beyond words, beyond comprehension, just a long, drawn out moment of utter bliss as Ben’s weight pins her down and he starts to kiss any inch of skin he can find.

“For the record,” he murmurs, finding her lips and kissing her softly, “I had some different hypotheses to test out. Although I’m hoping for similar results.”

She can’t argue.

They do work well together.

**Author's Note:**

> I missed reposting something last week, so I went with a crowd favorite this week. Hope it's as enjoyable now as it was then!


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